Dispatches

‘Most dangerous philosopher’ to deliver Dundee lecture

The man dubbed ‘the most dangerous philosopher in the West’ will next month visit the University of Dundee to talk about Samuel Beckett, terror, politics, persecution and everything in between.

Slavoj Žižek will deliver his lecture at the University’s Dalhousie Building on Thursday 8 November. The world-renowned Slovenian academic, who was ranked by Foreign Policy magazine as being among the Top 100 Global Thinkers, has also been described as a celebrity philosopher and ‘the Elvis of cultural theory’.

He has written or co-authored dozens of books in several languages covering the fields of philosophy, psychoanalysis, literature, film, politics, and theology among others. His works are among the best-selling philosophy texts of all-time.

In addition to appearing as himself in the 2005 biopic Žižek!, he has appeared in several other critically acclaimed documentaries, some of which he acted as screenwriter for. Slavoj Žižek attracts large crowds wherever he lectures and his talks have been watched millions of times on YouTube.

The Dundee event, entitled ‘Samuel Beckett’s Art of Abstraction’, is organised by the University-based Scottish Centre for Continental Philosophy.

Senior Lecturer Dr Frank Ruda said, “Slavoj Žižek is probably the most famous living philosopher, and the interest he draws from the general public is unheard of in this field.

“His lectures are famous for seemingly going off-tangent, yet therein Žižek embodies best the systematic kernel of what psychoanalysis calls ‘free association’. Always drawing on a huge range of sources, he is able to render legible and theoretically interesting what seems most obscure or far off, from contemporary events to Kung Fu Panda or Trump.

“For Žižek, there is something to think even where there seems to be nothing. The starting point this time will be a play by Samuel Beckett and from there he will demonstrate how this work has contemporary political relevance.”

Among the many academic positions he currently holds are Senior Researcher and Professor of Philosophy at the University of Ljubljana, Professor of Philosophy and Psychoanalysis at the European Graduate School, International Director of the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities at the University of London, and Global Distinguished Professor of German at New York University.